Daniel - Poker Journal

Pushed to the Limit

It feels like it's been forever since my last real entry during my honeymoon in Maui. I mentioned the golf and the surfing right? What about the horseback riding and the bee bite?

That's right, I got stung for the very first time in my life at Spagos. I had no idea what to do, but the waitress recommended baking soda. Hey, whatever works man.

So the honeymoon was great, blah, blah, blah, but from the minute I landed back in Vegas it was pedal to the medal work for me. I promised Lori (and myself) that I wouldn't do ANY work while on vacation so things really piled up and I had no time to get to anything because I had to be on set the following morning to shoot my DVD.

That was five days of non-stop grinding baby, wow. I worked my butt off and was so excited when it was done. It's strange, you spend that much time with people you create a bond so quickly. I feel like I'm going to miss everyone involved with the production from Natalie the make up artist to Andre "2009" one of the PA's. Also the students Danielle, Ericka, and Cole.

On one of the shoot days I also had another engagement to show off STACKED. Editors, and all kinds of important people from the video game industry were on hand to play STACKED and I was supposed to MC the event.

MTV 2 was covering the event also and it was a blast. The winner of the event would play me, and it just so happened to be the dude who was hosting for MTV! It's going to make for a fun bit for sure.

I got about 3 hours of sleep that night and in 5 days I probably got about 24 hours total. It was rough, but well worth it. This DVD is just going to rock. There is no instructional DVD on the market that is anything like this one. I am so proud of it and can't wait to see the finished product.

I got a little rest before playing in today's event at Harrah's. When I got there I didn't realize it wasn't televised or I wouldn't have played. A non-televised event just doesn't attract enough players. Not that that's a horrible thing, but I had other important commitments that I had on the backburner tonight and tomorrow.

I probably should have took my buy in back but it seemed to be a little too late so I decided to goof around a little bit. If I could muster up a monster stack there was a chance I could get all of my stuff done and still make a miraculous run at winning the event.

I started out playing every pot against Alan Goering. He made it 100 and I'd go all in for 10,000 with A-J! LOL, it was all silly but kinda fun. I had my chips up to about 14,000 at one point.

This is the hand that got me: Alan Goering raised to 100 on the button and I re-raised from the small blind with K-4 off suit. Why? Cause it's Alan and I felt like it that's why!

Alan went all in for 8400 more and I thought, "Why not, It's only Alan." I figured Alan could have A-Q or even a hand like 9-10 suited. He had 7-7 and that left me with 2700.

The very next hand Alan raised again and I went all in without looking at my cards. Alan had 9-2 and folded, but the big blind had QQ and busted my 6-3 off suit.

I really had to go. I had some personal matters that were just more important to me than this tournament. My life doesn't revolve around these events, and while I shouldn't have played in the first place I'm fine with my choice to dump off.

Actually, I got a text message during the K-4 hand before I called. It let me know that I HAD to be somewhere. That made my decision easy, and frankly I was rooting for Alan- he's a nice guy!

I just absolutely know for a fact that I'm going to receive flack for this, but it doesn't phase me in the least. I know what I'm doing and like I said, I'm comfortable with the choice I made. I'd tell you all what it was, but as I said it was a personal matter that couldn't be avoided. Not for $10,000, not for a million dollars.

I'm off now to an important dinner and will have to write about 4 columns later tonight. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to the bloggin' again tomorrow.

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